Back Alley Brawler
by SamanthaBlue
Summary: If there was one thing Happy could not stand, it was someone calling Sylvester "Rain Man".


**A/N:** This isn't terribly good, I just felt like writing something about Happy at three in the morning. Hope it's enjoyable :)

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"The fuck kind of a name is Happy?"

It didn't matter that one of her best friends was the world's greatest behavioural analyst – Happy didn't need anyone to tell her what kinds of attitudes set her off. Ignorance was her major trigger – not plain stupidity, not people who couldn't tell a watt from an ampere – but ignorance, the kind that made people shout slurs alluding to her being a lesbian because she was interested in cars rather than because she had displayed any interest in the more attractive members of the female sex, or the people who tried to "help" Sylvester by not letting him make his own decisions because they decided he was labeled by the unqualified as too autistic, the people who called Toby good-for-nothing criminal scum. She hated it.

She was just fortunate her father had paid for her to learn taekwondo as a teenager. Both her parents (and they were her parents; despite her being adopted they were more mother and father than her scumbag biological family ever were) had been concerned about their daughter coming home far too often with bruises and cuts everywhere. She never had taken slurs well.

"It's the kind of name you'll never forget after I kick your ass," she growled back.

The guy wasn't especially tall, but even when he didn't break six feet he still towered over Happy. He had friends, too – two of them. Walter always told her not to incite people. She could hold her own in a fight, but three on one was certainly testing. She had also learned from experience never to assume that one of your opponents wasn't former military.

"I heard of someone named Happy before," said the man to the left. Slimy, he looked. He was too pale, with slicked back dark blonde hair that really didn't suit him. If he came any closer, Happy guessed she would catch a strong whiff of stale cigarettes. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "My wife hired Andrea a tutor. Fucking idiot, that girl is. Sixteen and doesn't know her times tables. That tutor mentioned someone called Happy. That you?" He grinned. Happy's eyes narrowed. "Crazy bitch that one was. You know he actually cried when he came in after one of my wife's dinner parties? Took one look at the dirty dishes and went mental. Sacked him then… you don't want people like that round kids. They should all be locked up, all those Rain Man types. No room for them in a civilized society."

And Happy saw red. She knew he was talking about Sylvester. She had heard this story from him, when he came home from a tutoring job much too early, long before Walter had gotten them the work with the government. If there was one thing that made all of Toby's relaxation techniques go out the window, that made her forget her parents' upset faces after she pissed someone off enough to get a chunk of glass in her thigh that required seven stitches, it was calling Sylvester _Rain Man_.

She let out a yell, a cry of grief for all they had suffered from the normal, and she leapt forward and punched that guy squarely in the face. He squealed just like a pig as his nose broke under her fist, and his two friends leapt forward, big meaty hands grabbing for her. She wasn't as quick as she used to be, but she still held her own in a fight.

But that didn't mean they didn't get in a few good hits of their own. By the time she limped back to the workshop on a twisted ankle, the blood running from her temple had clotted, and enough endorphins had been released for her to be able to smile. Paige fussed as she patched her up, asking questions like who the President was in an effort to ascertain if she had concussion, and Sylvester nervously chewed on his fingernails as he worried about whether or not she was hiding life threatening injuries from them, but as she caught Toby's eye, he grinned, and she knew he understood why she now felt at peace.

The world may have been out to get her since she was two years old, but she finally had a family to defend. And the best part was they cared about her too.

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**A/N: **Please take the time to review!


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